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Knowledge is the food of the soul. Problem is we are all binge eating. Edit : Good TED talk on this topic https://www.ted.com/talks/jp_rangaswami_information_i

Knowledge is the food of the soul. Problem is we are all binge eating. Edit : Good TED talk on this topic https://www.ted.com/talks/jp_rangaswami_information_is_food https://www.ted.com/talks/jp_rangaswami_information_is_food [2012]

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
QAPereo 9y ago
Bullshit != Knowledge. Worse, bullshit benefits from the sharp end of Brandolini’s Law.
- snerbles 9y ago
  “The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” A blog entry on Brandolini's Law: https://real-psychiatry.blogspot.com/2016/12/brandolinis-law.html https://real-psychiatry.blogspot.com/2016/12/brandolinis-law...
  - ak39 9y ago
    I think this could apply to the ratio of coding to debugging too.
    - ghzkvhjk 9y ago
      What a coincidence. I copied this law to my collection of quotes, and the last entry was this: "Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?" -Brian Kernighan
- stcredzero 9y ago
  There's the old adage: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! Let's take that seriously. It has always been much easier to imitate the semblance of meaning than it was to find the substantively meaningful. Things with only the semblance of meaning have always proliferated. Idle talk, children's rhymes, songs, music, myths... all of these have always proliferated. Why did they not drown out actual meaning? I think the above is one of the key questions for the survival of humanity. A part of the answer is that there has never been a clear demarcation between the meaningful and meaningless. There is valuable information in the structure of myth, songs, and idle talk. It is clear that something in human beings acts as an effective filter for meaning and value. It is also clear that rationality isn't the totality of whatever this is, though it might be a part of it.
  - telchar 9y ago
    I would argue that those things historically have drowned out actual meaning, if by actual meaning you mean factually correct and significant information. Only with the advent of science have we been able to reliably sort the meaningless from the meaningful. I think the major concern here, aside from the general deleterious effects of addiction of any sort on people, is that the tide of meaningless factoids and useless information is swelling and drowning out substantive, useful information which is generated with greater difficulty and spreads less easily. A greater ratio of meaninglessness to meaningfulness is part of the problem, compounded by the aggressive way our attention is directed toward it. I think the filter you mention exists but is struggling in this environment more than in the recent past.
    - stcredzero 9y ago
      I would argue that those things historically have drowned out actual meaning, Which is precisely why humanity didn't progress, never invented science, never improved human rights and the standard of living, and we died out in a state of primitive brutishness. Clearly, actual meaning has found its way through, somehow. I think the filter you mention exists but is struggling in this environment more than in the recent past. What is your evidence for this? Can you quantify this in objective terms?
      - telchar 9y ago
        In comparison to the last few hundred years, and with a few notable exceptions in time and place, we have spent the great majority of the past not progressing. Compare the progress made from 10000 BCE to 1700 CE to the progress made since. The rate isn't zero but comparatively very low. That said, I haven't put much thought into this viewpoint and was mostly extending the parent poster's idea. Proper discussion of this would require a great deal of care and nuance and I honestly don't feel like putting in the effort for that. Apologies if you were looking for a substantive debate.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
api 9y ago
I wouldn't put it that way. The problem is that a ton of the stuff impinging on us is not knowledge. It's propaganda, fluff, stupid memes, click bait, and systems with interfaces designed to be addictive and to act like Skinner boxes. What I really see happening is a "part 2" repeat of the spam apocalypse that hit e-mail, Usenet, and other federated systems on the early Internet. In the late 1990s spam destroyed most of these systems. E-mail was so valuable it had to be saved, but saving it has mostly involved delegating it to a small oligopoly of vertically integrated e-mail providers with the resources to fight spam. Usenet and other less well known federated systems were destroyed. I think we are now seeing a similar kind of spam assault against the open web, social media, and the news. The latter with the whole "fake news" phenomenon really resembles a Sybil attack. In recent years I've seen an avalanche of totally fake news sites that look like legitimate newspapers popped up (apparently from templates) and used to spam social media with a whole slew of unfounded allegations and other assorted bullshit. The role they've had in the election has gained a lot of press but it's in no way limited to that or even to politics. A lot of it seems to be shilling for quack medical products and other traditional mainstays of... spam! I've started calling this whole phenomenon "spam 2.0." I'd define spam 2.0 as the semi-automated bulk creation of fake news outlets, fake social media profiles, and hoaxes and their use to engage in the coordinated manipulation of opinion. I'm also anticipating the rise of spam 3.0. Spam 3.0 will be fully automated and AI-powered, with AI being used to create an individual "persuasive agent" for each human target. Think of it as massively parallel individual con artistry and/or "spear phishing" at scale. Social media companies are already pioneering this tech, but the spam apocalypse will really hit when it goes public and you can do it with readily available tools. I find it rather depressing but for a while I've been predicting that the first use of AI that can (even borderline) pass the Turing test will be con artistry, cult indoctrination techniques, and demagoguery at scale. It's really pretty scary to the point that I'm wondering if the use of AI to persuade humans should be outlawed. Of course then you get the "then only criminals will have guns" effect. This is particularly true on the borderless Internet where it's unlikely to be outlawed everywhere. Users of this tech would just go offshore. An alternative to outlawing might be to disseminate the tools as widely as possible to eliminate any comparative advantage and render the whole thing moot. If this destroys social media in the process then so be it. Going to happen anyway. Edit: the bottom line is that "cognitive self-defense" is going to become a thing. These "warning signs for tomorrow" are becoming relevant: http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/images/warning4.png http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/images/warning4.png We are living in a cyberpunk novel.
emodendroket 9y ago
I don't think "knowledge" is necessarily what we're getting. I learn a lot more reading a single nonfiction book than I do in an equivalent amount of time spent on Twitter and Facebook.
- johnvonneumann 9y ago
  This. I have been staunch anti-social media for a while now, but not long ago I heard someone from a community I'm involved in say that the conversation on twitter was actually pretty intelligent so I signed up. You hear about how it's good to use these sites because you occasionally get pearls of wisdom, Nassim Taleb (funny because he actually has a twitter account) referred to it as digging through mountains of shit to find diamonds, sure, you may find a diamond, but you'll also be covered in shit. EDIT: Deleted my twitter account after a month, wanna nerf LinkedIn as well but that decision has professional impacts.
cirgue 9y ago
Except we're not bingeing on knowledge, we're binging on text. Knowledge requires construction and interaction.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

QAPereo 9y ago

Bullshit != Knowledge. Worse, bullshit benefits from the sharp end of Brandolini’s Law.

snerbles 9y ago
“The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” A blog entry on Brandolini's Law: https://real-psychiatry.blogspot.com/2016/12/brandolinis-law.html https://real-psychiatry.blogspot.com/2016/12/brandolinis-law...
- ak39 9y ago
  I think this could apply to the ratio of coding to debugging too.
  - ghzkvhjk 9y ago
    What a coincidence. I copied this law to my collection of quotes, and the last entry was this: "Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?" -Brian Kernighan
stcredzero 9y ago
There's the old adage: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em! Let's take that seriously. It has always been much easier to imitate the semblance of meaning than it was to find the substantively meaningful. Things with only the semblance of meaning have always proliferated. Idle talk, children's rhymes, songs, music, myths... all of these have always proliferated. Why did they not drown out actual meaning? I think the above is one of the key questions for the survival of humanity. A part of the answer is that there has never been a clear demarcation between the meaningful and meaningless. There is valuable information in the structure of myth, songs, and idle talk. It is clear that something in human beings acts as an effective filter for meaning and value. It is also clear that rationality isn't the totality of whatever this is, though it might be a part of it.
- telchar 9y ago
  I would argue that those things historically have drowned out actual meaning, if by actual meaning you mean factually correct and significant information. Only with the advent of science have we been able to reliably sort the meaningless from the meaningful. I think the major concern here, aside from the general deleterious effects of addiction of any sort on people, is that the tide of meaningless factoids and useless information is swelling and drowning out substantive, useful information which is generated with greater difficulty and spreads less easily. A greater ratio of meaninglessness to meaningfulness is part of the problem, compounded by the aggressive way our attention is directed toward it. I think the filter you mention exists but is struggling in this environment more than in the recent past.
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    I would argue that those things historically have drowned out actual meaning, Which is precisely why humanity didn't progress, never invented science, never improved human rights and the standard of living, and we died out in a state of primitive brutishness. Clearly, actual meaning has found its way through, somehow. I think the filter you mention exists but is struggling in this environment more than in the recent past. What is your evidence for this? Can you quantify this in objective terms?
    - telchar 9y ago
      In comparison to the last few hundred years, and with a few notable exceptions in time and place, we have spent the great majority of the past not progressing. Compare the progress made from 10000 BCE to 1700 CE to the progress made since. The rate isn't zero but comparatively very low. That said, I haven't put much thought into this viewpoint and was mostly extending the parent poster's idea. Proper discussion of this would require a great deal of care and nuance and I honestly don't feel like putting in the effort for that. Apologies if you were looking for a substantive debate.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

api 9y ago

I wouldn't put it that way. The problem is that a ton of the stuff impinging on us is not knowledge. It's propaganda, fluff, stupid memes, click bait, and systems with interfaces designed to be addictive and to act like Skinner boxes. What I really see happening is a "part 2" repeat of the spam apocalypse that hit e-mail, Usenet, and other federated systems on the early Internet. In the late 1990s spam destroyed most of these systems. E-mail was so valuable it had to be saved, but saving it has mostly involved delegating it to a small oligopoly of vertically integrated e-mail providers with the resources to fight spam. Usenet and other less well known federated systems were destroyed. I think we are now seeing a similar kind of spam assault against the open web, social media, and the news. The latter with the whole "fake news" phenomenon really resembles a Sybil attack. In recent years I've seen an avalanche of totally fake news sites that look like legitimate newspapers popped up (apparently from templates) and used to spam social media with a whole slew of unfounded allegations and other assorted bullshit. The role they've had in the election has gained a lot of press but it's in no way limited to that or even to politics. A lot of it seems to be shilling for quack medical products and other traditional mainstays of... spam! I've started calling this whole phenomenon "spam 2.0." I'd define spam 2.0 as the semi-automated bulk creation of fake news outlets, fake social media profiles, and hoaxes and their use to engage in the coordinated manipulation of opinion. I'm also anticipating the rise of spam 3.0. Spam 3.0 will be fully automated and AI-powered, with AI being used to create an individual "persuasive agent" for each human target. Think of it as massively parallel individual con artistry and/or "spear phishing" at scale. Social media companies are already pioneering this tech, but the spam apocalypse will really hit when it goes public and you can do it with readily available tools. I find it rather depressing but for a while I've been predicting that the first use of AI that can (even borderline) pass the Turing test will be con artistry, cult indoctrination techniques, and demagoguery at scale. It's really pretty scary to the point that I'm wondering if the use of AI to persuade humans should be outlawed. Of course then you get the "then only criminals will have guns" effect. This is particularly true on the borderless Internet where it's unlikely to be outlawed everywhere. Users of this tech would just go offshore. An alternative to outlawing might be to disseminate the tools as widely as possible to eliminate any comparative advantage and render the whole thing moot. If this destroys social media in the process then so be it. Going to happen anyway. Edit: the bottom line is that "cognitive self-defense" is going to become a thing. These "warning signs for tomorrow" are becoming relevant: http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/images/warning4.png http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/images/warning4.png We are living in a cyberpunk novel.

emodendroket 9y ago

I don't think "knowledge" is necessarily what we're getting. I learn a lot more reading a single nonfiction book than I do in an equivalent amount of time spent on Twitter and Facebook.

johnvonneumann 9y ago
This. I have been staunch anti-social media for a while now, but not long ago I heard someone from a community I'm involved in say that the conversation on twitter was actually pretty intelligent so I signed up. You hear about how it's good to use these sites because you occasionally get pearls of wisdom, Nassim Taleb (funny because he actually has a twitter account) referred to it as digging through mountains of shit to find diamonds, sure, you may find a diamond, but you'll also be covered in shit. EDIT: Deleted my twitter account after a month, wanna nerf LinkedIn as well but that decision has professional impacts.

cirgue 9y ago

Except we're not bingeing on knowledge, we're binging on text. Knowledge requires construction and interaction.